WHAT'S NEW IN VACCINES; 'Interesting Numbers' for the Manufacturers

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NEW technology, particularly genetic engineering, is reviving interest in vaccines - agents that induce immunity to diseases. After a 20-year slump that saw the number of vaccine producers shrink by half and fundamental advances slow to a crawl, the pace of development is quickening.

''I think we're going to see an upsurge in new vaccine introductions,'' said Manny Ratafia, president of the Technology Management Group, a market research company. He predicts, in fact, that 32 new human vaccine products are likely by the year 2000.

The rekindled interest in vaccines is closely tied to technological advances that are making it possible to produce safer vaccines. These products will ease - but not eliminate - the likelihood of liability claims such as those that plagued the swine flu, pertussis (whooping cough) and oral polio vaccines in the past.

''People got out of the vaccine business because of the liability problem and the lack of new science and technology,'' said David H. Smith, chief executive of Praxis Biologics Inc., a small vaccine company in Rochester. With less risk of side effects and the high prices commanded by vaccines ''you're beginning to look at some interesting numbers from a manufacturer's standpoint,'' Mr. Smith added.

This kind of optimism is luring pharmaceutical heavyweights and fledgling biotechnology companies alike into a multipronged campaign for improved versions of existing vaccines and for vaccines against diseases that have stubbornly resisted such control. This includes disorders like malaria, chicken pox, genital herpes and certain forms of cancer.

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More than a dozen companies are also searching furiously for an AIDS vaccine. ''I think we're still a long way from an effective AIDS vaccine,'' said Michel H. Klein, assistant vice president for research at Connaught Laboratories Ltd., a major Canadian vaccine maker. ''But we should know within five years whether a vaccine is possible.''

At present, sales of human vaccines at the wholesale level amount to $200 million annually in the United States and $450 million worldwide, estimates Philip Rotheim, a health care specialist with the Business Communications Company, a market research concern. By 1997, he predicts, sales will swell to $500 million in the United States and perhaps $1.2 billion globally.

The Big Three vaccine producers in North America are Merck & Company, the Lederle division of the American Cyanamid Company and Connaught, which has a marketing arrangement in the United States with the Squibb Corporation. Smaller players include the Parke Davis division of Warner Lambert and Wyeth Laboratories.

Meanwhile, the new technologies have begun to pay off. A genetically engineered vaccine against hepatitis B, a dangerous liver disease, is being sold by such companies as Merck and SmithKline Beckman. Praxis is marketing a vaccine against bacteria that cause spinal meningitis in children. And AIDS and malaria vaccines from various organizations have reached human clinical trials.

Gordon Graff is a New York technology writer.

A version of this article appears in print on May 15, 1988, on Page 3003013 of the National edition with the headline: WHAT'S NEW IN VACCINES; 'Interesting Numbers' for the Manufacturers. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe